Ok, maybe not in those “exact words”, but not since the Guinness beer commercials have two supremely educated individuals come to a conclusion more “brilliant”.

Professors John Kilburn and Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M International University reached out to GamePolitics a few days ago (sorry, I’m still recovering from my WoW addiction) to point them in the direction of a “meta-analytic review” they published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

In short, their conclusion states the following:

“Results from the current analysis do not support the conclusion that media violence leads to aggressive behavior. It cannot be concluded at this time that media violence presents a significant public health risk.”

A bulleted list outlining their findings is available for you after the jump.

• In the last 10 years, video games studies have been overwhelmingly popular compared to studies on other media.
• Less than half of studies (41%) used well validated aggression measures.
• Poorly standardized and unreliable measures of aggression tended to produce the highest effects, possibly because their unstandardized format allows researchers to pick and choose from a range of possible outcomes.
• The closer aggression measures got to actual violent behavior, the weaker the effects seen.
• Experimental studies produced much higher effects than correlational or longitudinal studies. As experimental studies were most likely to use aggression measures of poor quality, this may be the reason why.
• There was no evidence that video games produce higher effects than other media, despite their interactive nature.
• Overall, effects were negligible, and we conclude that media violence generally has little demonstrable effect on aggressive behavior.

Source: GamePolitics

When I saw the headline “Grand Theft Auto Sex Beast is Caged,” I knew I had to report it. I mean, not only is it more sensationalist anti-video game bullshit, but there was a sex beast on the loose! Thank God he was caged!

Ryan Chinnery of Kent, England, was arrested in September for sexually assaulting four women. Yesterday, he was convicted for two of the attacks and sentenced to at least four years in youth custody.

So here’s the deal: this kid went out cruising for ladies of the night and, in a two month span, attacked four women in a sexual manner (that weren’t hookers at all). In the worst case, he grabbed a 42-year-old woman by the throat and they toppled down an embankment into a river, and she broke her arm in the process.

The kid was finally caught when police matched DNA found on one of the women to him. At first he claimed to be at home playing on his computer when the attacks happened, but he eventually broke down in tears and admitted.

The kid claimed to have played a lot of Grand Theft Auto, but nowhere in the article does he allude to mimicking the game or the game influencing his actions in any way. Still, the prosecutor was quoted as saying that GTA “may go some way to explaining his attitude towards women.”

Admittedly, you can do some pretty nasty things in the Grand Theft Auto games, including beating and killing hookers. This is obviously the connection that the prosecution is trying to draw, but I have another theory.

While it is true that you can abuse hookers in Grand Theft Auto, it’s a very small portion of the game. Now, the article doesn’t say which Grand Theft Auto Chinnery was a fan of, so I can’t say whether or not the feature was entirely optional. I can’t remember what – if any – mandatory missions included interactions with prostitutes. Still, from a gamer’s standpoint, hookers are far from the main draw of the Grand Theft Auto games. So why would Chinnery choose to emulate this aspect of the game?

Grand Theft Auto didn’t invent the concept of paying women for sex. In fact, prostitution has been called “the world’s oldest profession.” Nor did the video game series invent the concept of molestation. Molestation is a very real problem that happens on a daily basis.

What if Chinnery was a sexual predator before he even fired up a Grand Theft Auto game for the first time? If we’re to believe that his actions were indeed caused by GTA, wouldn’t he be shooting people and running over pedestrians with his car, two acts which are much more prevalent in the game than beating hookers? Or perhaps he was drawn to that aspect due to a pre-existing problem?

The Grand Theft Auto games are rated Mature for a reason. Immature, impressionable idiots like Ryan Chinnery shouldn’t have access to the games, especially if they aren’t mentally stable to begin with. I’m not claiming that Grand Theft Auto played no part in Chinnery’s decision – I’m saying that if it did, that part was simply pushing him over the edge, the same way a violent movie or maybe a porn flick would have. Yet you don’t see the film industry or the adult industry causing the same ruckus that the videogame industry has. In the end, this kid’s actions are a result of his sick and twisted mind and I am truly glad that he got what was coming to him.

The Sun: Arrested, Convicted

Two teenagers have been charged with killing one of the pairs’ own 7-year-old sister using alleged Mortal Kombat imitation moves. The 16 and 17 year old teens were babysitting the child while the girl’s mother was at work when the incident happened.

The two teens reportedly hit, kicked, and body-slammed 7-year-old Zoe Garcia, causing “a broken wrist, more than 20 bruises, swelling of the brain, and bleeding in her neck muscles and under her spine”, the affidavits have said. Prosecutors are claiming the teens were imitating “wrestling moves” found in the Mortal Kombat video game.

The 17 year old Roberts claimed he was downstairs at the time, drunk and playing video games, but witnesses told authorities otherwise. One witness stated that according to Roberts, Zoe pleaded with them to stop wrestling with her, but he did not stop. When asked why he refused to stop, Roberts answered “I don’t know; I was drunk.”

There is no defense for this kind of crime. The pure malice you need in order to kill a 7 year old girl that brutally does not come, nor is there any evidence it comes from, video games. The fact video games are being dragged into this horrendous debacle is indicative of the current state of affairs and only reinforces the publics misconceived perception regarding the impact of videogame violence.

If the two teens are convicted, they face up to 48 years in prison.

Read the full story here.